Re: Continuing the Packard

Posted by Mahoning63 On 2012/9/26 18:09:42

Had a couple thoughts about Mason's Feb '54 offer to Nance to merge and have Statesman/Clipper assembled in Kenosha and Ambassador/Packard in EGB.

First were sales. The combined Packard/Studebaker post-war annual sales mostly exceeded combined Nash/Hudson sales and for 1953 Nance helped push Packard sales proportionally even higher vis-a-vis the others. By early '54 he was probably feeling pretty good about himself and what he could accomplish and might have seen Hudson and Nash, to a certain extent, as laggards. Also, Studebaker volumes had been much higher than Nash and Hudson and way higher than Rambler in particular.

Second is an extension of the first and had to do with Mason. Notice how he always wanted to end up in charge of any grand merger he proposed even when his company wasn't necessarily in the strongest position going in. Historians may be accommodating of his plans but at the time could Nance or the Packard board really have been blamed for dismissing his proposal? What exactly would Packard have received in return for stamping and body assembly and loss of control of their company? They would have been stuck with Nash's large car platform that was going nowhere and carrying styling quirkiness completely out of the industry mainstream. Nance in particular seems to have made as a priority steering Packard and Studebaker toward design conventionality. One can only speculate but given Nance's disdain even for the 1953 Studebaker's atypical styling despite its being arguably pretty good, he couldn't have looked upon the big Nash, or any Nash, favorably. A merger with Nash would have meant accepting a large car design and platform that was going nowhere, a loss of Packard's autonomy in creating its own platforms, a loss of corporate control and the handing over of power to a guy and company with questionable design sense, questionable sales success and the nerve to ask for the world.

ADDITION: am assuming Mason's EGB Ambassador/Packard proposal would been Nash-based. Does anyone have any details on this? Is there a possibility that Ambassador would have actually picked up the Packard platform? Given Mason's proclivity towards consolidation this seems unlikely.